Horror Express, a delightful movie monograph Connolly published last year, explored his fascination with nostalgia. Has he been in retrospective mode for his 20th anniversary? I love Charlie Parker, I love Louis and Angel, I even love Tony and Paulie Fulci (how could you not?) The was a distinct absence of Jennifer, which I was unhappy about, but enough death and chaos and sarcasm to keep me interested. There’s a temptation to reverse engineer your career and say, well, there was this great plan, but Every Dead Thing was a rejected book, it was rejected at the halfway stage by almost everybody, and although hugely frustrating and hurtful, it was a very liberating moment, because if you have nobody telling you, we’ll publish it if you do this, if you only have an agent telling you, actually, you’ve kind of screwed yourself up here because they’ve all read it and they don’t want it but I like it and you need to follow this path and see where it’s going.

The Furies” revolves around two women for whom Parker has taken on cases. The first is Sarah Abelli, who tragically lost her daughter, Kara. To add insult to injury, two men have robbed her of personal items that amounted to all she had left of Kara. Even though Sarah comes from a family with a criminal past that Parker is well aware of, it is important for him to retrieve her valuable possessions. He will get unexpected help when the specter of a little girl begins to haunt the culprits while they stay at the same flophouse as Buker did in the first story. The two stories were fantastic. I'll confess that I may have enjoyed the last story more than the first, because it had a more supernatural bent to it. I do love that stuff!😜This is 5 stars and more. Absolutely recommend. And if you have never read this series and read this book, you are in for a Treat. From the First Charlie Parker book- Every Dead Thing - to this book, it’s a journey. These characters become real to the reader and Connolly is one of the best suspense novelist (maybe the best). I have been a die-hard John Connolly fan for years, and I would rate him as the best author I've read - when I buy one of his books, I save it up to read later as a sort of guilty pleasure knowing that a treat is in store. New York Times bestselling author John Connolly pits Parker against two separate—but vitally connected—investigations, which prove to be among the most complicated of his entire career in this “must-read for the author’s fans and a good introduction to the series for newbie” ( Booklist ). The Furies by John Connolly is actually two novellas connected by theme and a somewhat disreputable hotel. In the first story, The Sisters Strange, Charlie Parker is hired by a man to protect the woman he loves from a dangerous man. Trouble is, this dangerous man not only has a relationship with the woman in question but with her sister as well. In his attempt to help the sisters, Charlie finds himself drawn into what should be a simple theft of some valuable coins but this is a Charlie Parker thriller so of course nothing is as simple as it seems.

It had been a while since I read one of John Connolly’s Charlie Parker series, so when I spotted this book I bought it on a whim. Chaos and murder arrive in Charlie Parker’s hometown of Portland, Maine, with two connected crimes in the latest novel in #1 nationally bestselling author John Connolly’s “flawless and highly suspenseful” ( PopSugar) series.Five stars because omgoodness what a Charlie Parker novel this is! Or should I say two novels? Yes, what Mr. Connolly imagined as a novella - Sisters Strange - and wrote during the early part of the pandemic instead became a short novel! It's here! And followed by The Furies. Two novels in one book! Yay! Charlie gets involved in two separate issues here, ones he needs help with from his pals Louis, the big guy who's maybe done a lot bad stuff but is square and loyal to Charlie, and Angel, Louis' life partner, who was supposedly dying of cancer but now is in remission. The Fulci brothers are also present and anyone who reads this series KNOWS who they are.

Quinn informs Parker about the occult connection to the investigation, which is evident when certain symbols are found not only at the murder scenes, but also in Buker’s room at a local flophouse along with a new tattoo on his forearm. The inevitable meeting between Buker and the Sisters Strange will occur. They know what he is about and are more than capable of handling themselves to overcome any threat he may pose. As skilled as Parker is at his job, he appears to be a mere bystander in this story. Since 2009, he has also written books for younger readers with the Samuel Johnson Vs. The Darkness series and The Chronicles of the Invaders trilogy. Ex-freelance journalist, John Connolly is now an Irish author who is known for writing supernatural crime thrillers, young adult fantasy, and science-fiction series. I wasn't the biggest fan of the 19th in the series, so I was pleased to find this 20th Charlie Parker story great! Shadow Voices (2021) – Non-fiction. The story of genre fiction – horror, romantic fiction, science fiction, crime writing, and more – is also the story of Irish fiction. Irish writers have given the world Lemuel Gulliver, Dracula, and the world of Narnia. They have produced pioneering tales of detection, terrifying ghost stories and ground-breaking women’s popular fiction.

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And in the title novel, The Furies , Parker must protect two women under threat as Portland shuts down in the face of a global pandemic. But it may be that those clients are more capable of taking care of themselves than anyone could have imagined. Women figure predominantly in both novels, Charlie being caught up in issues/problems/dilemmas involving women. (Not romantically or sexually, though he does have a woman friend who I'd like to see him get it on with more than he does!) Charlie Parker, former police, now PI working mostly out of a bar, takes on some seriously weird and unusual problems in both novels. In the first: John Connolly’s latest supernatural thriller, “The Furies”, is actually two novels for the price of one. Both feature Connolly’s private detective Charlie Parker, a man haunted by demons, both figurative and literal. Strangely enough, things are going well for Parker, who has found some semblance of a life in Maine. He has a favorite watering hole, friends, and even the occasional client, but he is extremely discriminating about the types of cases he signs on to anymore. The Infernals (2011), also known as Hell’s Bells. Young Samuel Johnson is in trouble. Not only is his eyesight so poor that he mistakenly asks out a letter box on a date but an angry demon wants revenge for Samuel’s part in foiling the invasion of Earth by the forces of evil. When Samuel and his faithful dachshund, Boswell, are pulled through a portal into the dark realm, home of the Infernals, it gets its chance.

Both of these stories make it clear that even when investigating smaller cases – at least compared to some of the previous books in the series – Charlie Parker is a force for good and a character with plenty of stories left to tell. The Furies is an excellent example of a series that delights in horrifying and uplifting its readers simultaneously; long may it continue to do so. I could not imagine anything better to read than the next Charlie Parker novel. Ok, two novellas. Each time I feel the same mystery, adventure, danger, and raw evil, the same matchless sense of humor, and the same deep affection for the main characters. Portland, Maine becomes magical because Charlie lives and works there. And the evil that makes its appearance in that town is really scary. I read this book (or these two books, as they are 2 different, completely unrelated stories) in just under a day. It was that good. I literally could not put it down until I was finished. In The Sisters Strange, the return of the criminal Raum Buker to Portland, Maine brings with it chaos and murder, as an act of theft threatens not only to tear apart his own existence but also that of Raum’s former lovers, the enigmatic sisters Dolors and Ambar Strange. I preferred The Sisters Strange, but I enjoyed the entire book. The humor, combined with the excellent creation of atmosphere, is what keeps me reading these supernatural thrillers. The author also has a much broader vocabulary than most thriller writers. Parker’s colleagues Angel and Louis make only a few brief appearances in this book, but I was ok with that. Jeff Harding did an excellent job narrating the audiobook. 4.5 starsAnd in The Furies Parker finds himself fighting to protect two more women as the city of Portland shuts down in the face of a global pandemic, but it may be that his clients are more capable of taking care of themselves than anyone could have imagined . . . In The Furies, Parker is hired on two separate cases by women trying to save their daughters from evil men. This story takes place in the days leading up to quarantine. The two stories are not linked, but the setting of Portland, Maine, and the characters tie the two together. A Book of Bones is the end of a six-novel sequence, starting with The Wolf In Winter, and I knew if it had an English setting, it would enable me to close the circle. My earliest reading was English ghost stories, that tradition of MR James, E Nesbit, and I have a fascination with folk horror, the idea of the past being alive in the present and you can’t really set that kind of book in the United States. I’m interested in psychogeography, the idea that the landscape retains something of the people who pass through, you will stand in a place and almost hear the echo of voices.